Read this document if you are an Apache committer and you want to learn how
to create and publish a release from an Apache project, or you have a
general interest in the Apache release process. This document will provide
you with an overview of tthe requirements and some commonly-used tools, and
it will provide you with links to other pages with more details.

The Goal of the Release Process — or — What is an Apache Release, Anyway?¶

An Apache release is a set of valid , signed , artifacts, voted on by the appropriate PMC and distributed on the ASF's official release
infrastructure. All of the highlighted words in the previous sentence
are critical, and are defined in the following sections.

The common practice at Apache is for a single individual to take
responsibility for the mechanics of a release. That individual is called
the 'release manager.' Release managers take care of shepherding a release
from an initial community consensus to make it to final distribution.

Release managers do the work of pushing out releases. However, release
managers are not ultimately responsible. The PMC in general, and the PMC
chair in particular (as an officer of the Foundation) is responsible for
compliance with requirements.

Any committer may serve as the manager of a release.

A release starts when the project community agrees to make a release.
However, no release manager can make a valid release unless the community
has taken the necessary steps to prepare in advance. The source code and
build process must comply with the legal and intellectual property
requirements for a valid release, and the project must have the
infrastructure in place to correctly sign the release artifacts.

The Apache Software Foundation exists to create open source software. Thus,
the fundamental requirement for a release is that it consist of the
necessary source code to build the project. Optionally, a release may
be accompanied by compiled binaries for the convenience of users.

All the source code of the project must be covered by the Apache License,
version 2.0. The license must be included in each source file. For the license
to be valid, the code must have been contributed by an individual covered
by an appropriate contributor license agreement, or have otherwise been
licensed to the Foundation and passed through IP clearance. See this
page for details on licensing and this
FAQ for details on release
requirements. When in doubt, contact the Foundation's Legal resources by
filing a JIRA under the 'LEGAL' project. The
RAT tool can assist in checking for
compliance.

Many projects have dependencies on non-Apache components. For an Apache
release to be valid, it may only depend on non-Apache components that have
compatible licenses. For more information on third party license, see ASF
Legal Previously Asked
Questions.

The files that make up an Apache release are always accompanied by
cryptographic signatures. This allows users to ensure that the files have
not been tampered with. The mechanics of signing depend on the project's
build technology. The Apache infrastructure group strongly recommends that
projects set up automated infrastructure to sign the files, as otherwise
the process is painful. Generally, projects set up their build system so
that the same process that creates the files for a release also signs them.

The process of setting up to sign the code is somewhat complicated, and it
is described on the release signing page. If you
plan to serve as a release manager, you should generate a key and publish
it well in advance of creating a release.

A binding vote of the PMC is the critical gating step in the release
process. Without such a vote, the release is just a set of files prepared
by an individual. After such a vote, it is a formal offering of the ASF,
backed by the 'full faith and credit' of the Foundation. For more
information on the voting process, see the voting
policy.

The Apache infrastructure must be the primary source for all artifacts
officially released by the ASF.

The Apache Infrastructure team maintains the Apache release distribution
infrastructure. This infrastructure has two parts: the mirrored directories
on www.apache.org and the Maven repository on repository.apache.org.

Each Apache TLP has a release/TLP-name directory in the distribution
Subversion repository at https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/.
Once a release vote passes, the release manager should svn add the artifacts
(plus signature and hash files) into this location. Each project is responsible for
the structure of its directory. The contents of these directories are pushed to
http://www.apache.org/dist/ by svnpubsub. Note that only the most
recent version of each supported release line should be stored here; see
when to archive.

The contents of the dist/release/ directories are published to the 3rd party mirrors using rsync.

It is vital that hash, signature and KEYS files are only downloaded from ASF hosts.
So the following files are excluded from synchronisation:

Apache uses svnpubsub internally and rsync mirrroring externally.
Files committed to the
Subversion repository at https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/ are automatically
copied, using svnpubsub, to
www.apache.org , and then the external mirrors pick up the files from
www.apache.org. It may take up to 24 hours or more for a newly published
release to be sync'd to all mirrors. Mirrors have their own schedules. Mirrors
are required to check at least once
a day, but most will check for updates 2 to 4 times per day.